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Friday, August 14, 2009

Terms of Use Reminder

Earlier this week, I learned that at least two people are posting my kits on their blogs as their own creations. It's been a tough week trying to decide if I want to continue posting my freebies just to let others steal my work. Have any of you had that happen? How did you resolve it? Any advice on what I should do? Here's a few friendly reminders:
  • My freebie kits are for personal use only and/or to create something for an individual if you don't charge them. If you want to use my kits to create quickpages or other flattened file freebies to share with others on your blog, please check with me first (e-mail address on home page). This gives me the chance to publicize your creations on my blog and to send others your way.

  • Feel free to post previews of my kits on your blog and/or credit me when you post your own layouts so others who are interested know where to find my work. I appreciate those of you who do that. However, do not post my 4-shared links on your blog or upload my files and claim them as your own.

  • And last: if you design it, claim it. If you don't, don't.
And for all of you that have been so supportive of me and my work, THANK YOU! I'm sorry you even had to read this. Take care...

6 comments:

Carolyn said...

For the life of me I can't figure out why people do this when all they have to do is send people to your blog. I could never live with myself if I lied and told someone that I made something that I didn't. I don't even know how to find out if someone was using my stuff. I'm so sorry that this has happened to you. I thought grabbing and running without a simple thank you was bad, but this takes the cake! Please don't allow some low life to take your joy out of creating your wonderful designs.

daisydilly (vicki) said...

wow this is awful. it's a shame some bad apples ruin the fun for the rest of us.

Rose said...

That totally sucks, and ruins it for the rest of us! I added a password to my last two downloads, so people can't be sent to the 4shared link unless they know the password (although if the password is posted on your blog they could just post the password on their blog as well, so I don't know how much this will help!!) Just prevents hotlinking more than anything I suppose. Other than that I don't know...I'm not much help!

coni43 said...

I would like for you to post the names of the people and their blogs that are claiming your work. I want to be sure that I don't do business with them.

Unknown said...

I love your kits Maureen and think that being able to give away freebies generates more traffic to your blog and more people interested in purchasing your other designs. I hate that other people abuse your copy rights and claim your work. While I hate to see the freebies go, I can understand your frustration. I think that you have raised awareness of this issue so that digiscrappers can help to stop it. It's going to take all of us to keep the few dishonest people in their place.

lammogliagirl said...

Would you consider letting us know where these blogs are? If I knew, I would be happy to go over and post that this is not their property, and we know who it belongs to. This is the first time I've been to your blog (from XOXO Scraps) but I'm so happy I found you and upset that people are so dishonest! More power to you though, your kit is just darling!